Q: How can you compare a woman to a foetus and see them as equal, especially in early pregnancy?
A: Each of us, as a vulnerable unborn child, completed the journey from conception to birth. Most of us have seen the amazing ultrasound pictures of our own children or those of family members.
The baby’s heart starts beating at 21 days. At just six weeks, the baby’s eyes and eyelids, nose, mouth, and tongue are forming. Electrical brain activity can be detected at six or seven weeks, and by the end of the eighth week, all the baby’s organs are developing.
By ten weeks the child can make bodily movements. At 12 weeks the baby can be seen sucking its thumb and wiggling in the womb.
The amazing advances in ultrasound technology illuminate the truth that the unborn child is a human being – a human life with potential, not a potential human life.
Each human being, regardless of age, dependency, gender, disability, or circumstance, possesses a profound, inherent, equal, and irreplaceable value and dignity. If as a society we arbitrarily decide to choose which human lives are worthy or unworthy of protection in law, we diminish respect for all human life, born and unborn.
Q: That’s all very well but isn’t a woman’s body her own, shouldn’t she be able to do with it whatever she wants?
A: The unborn child also has rights, we don’t believe that a woman has a right to end the life of the child in her womb. The Constitution should protect unborn as well as born human beings.